Jewel in the crown

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Good jewellery used to be the domain of Tiffany and Harry
Winston, and of men - half-guilty, half-proud - buying presents for
their wives. In a way, it still is. A blue box from Tiffany still
counts for a lot; you wouldn't turn your nose up at a rock from
Winston. And if your stocking holds a diamond pave flower pin from
JAR, the Paris jeweller, you know your ship has come in.

But fine jewellery, the stuff that causes you to whistle softly
under your breath, has found purveyors among branded fashion names,
whether Chanel, Marc Jacobs, Bergdorf Goodman in the US or even
David Jones locally.

It's not for nothing that Barneys New York, Saks Fifth Avenue
and Bergdorf renovated their stores to give more main-floor selling
space to jewellery; Chanel has 34 stores around the world devoted
to jewellery and watches; Louis Vuitton, following its sister brand
Dior and its competitor Gucci, came out last month with a line of
jewellery that attempts to leverage the hip appeal of its bags and
of its designer, Marc Jacobs.

In Sydney, when David Jones unveiled its revamped cosmetics and
accessories ground floor space last month, there was 45 per cent
more jewellery floor space. "Jewellery has shown exceptional growth
over the last two years, an increase which has been above
expectations," says David Jones's general manager, men's and
women's collections, David Bush.

Still, with women increasingly buying jewellery for themselves,
specialty stores have identified a captive, if restless, consumer.
If she is spending thousands of dollars on fashion, why send her
jewellery business across the street?

Bush says his biggest jewellery customers are women aged 24 to
35. "It's an easy, affordable and accessible way for them to keep
up with the current trends."

Anything related to fashion, anything that draws on its
notorious powers of want and envy, is almost certain to hit
paydirt, since fashion has become a selling tool for virtually
everything, from vacuum cleaners to $250,000 diamond-and-leather
Vuitton chokers with a slight dominatrix feel.

Writers who complain that fashion is dead overlook its
capitalist structure: the moment one market seems exploited, say
handbags, a new one opens up. In the early 1990s designers were in
a jubilant less-is-more phase until a few of them looked at their
balance sheets and realised that less was just less. Thus began the
era of the Must-Have Handbag.

It may be simplistic to say the ardour for handbags has cooled -
tell that to Coach or Prada - yet fashion companies are realising
they can't play the luxury consumer cheap. They have to give her
something that feels genuinely exclusive. After all, diamonds are a
girl's best friend, not just an acquaintance.

Philippe Mougenot, the president of Chanel's watch and jewellery
division, says fine jewellery is a growing segment of the
luxury-goods business: "After opening 34 boutiques in 10 years, we
are still in a fast expansion phase." (By the way, the house first
sold real gems in 1932, in a collection Coco Chanel called Bijoux
de Diamants. She thought diamonds gave a nice wallop in a small
package.)

At David Jones the jewellery line-up features the accessible,
such as Mimco, Fabienne and Sophie Kyron, and the more luxury end
of the sparkle market such as Bulgari, Jan Logan and Dior.

Established jewellery houses have kept pace with the times, few
more so than Bulgari. Its latest necklace design, a tangle of gold
chains with semiprecious stones cut in octahedral shapes, seems at
once elegant and casual - like fashion itself. Tiffany was one of
the first companies to mix pedigree with fashion, beginning with
Elsa Peretti and Paloma Picasso. Its chairman, Michael J. Kowalski,
says Tiffany has not lost ground to its newer competitors, though
it is a subject, he admits, that he and other store executives have
thought a lot about.

"We look at the difference in behavioral terms," he says. "When
a woman buys jewellery from a fashion brand, she is first and
foremost adding an accessory to her outfit. When that same woman
walks into Tiffany, she enters with a different state of mind. She
wants something she can wear forever."

Strange as it must sound, forever doesn't seem as long as it
once was.